Dr. Thirlwall justly observes respecting Solon, “He must be considered as an arbitrator, to whom all the parties interested submitted their claims, with the avowed intent that they should be decided by him, not upon the footing of legal right, but according to his own view of the public interest. It was in this light that he himself regarded his office, and he appears to have discharged it faithfully and discreetly.” (History of Greece, ch. xi. vol. ii, p. 42.) One thing is never to be forgotten in regard to this measure, combined with the concurrent amendments introduced by Solon in the law,—it settled finally the question to which it referred. Never again do we hear of the law of debtor and creditor as disturbing Athenian tranquillity. The general sentiment which grew up at Athens, under the Solonian money-law, and under the democratical government, was one of high respect for the sanctity of contracts. Not only was there never any demand in the Athenian democracy for new tables or a depreciation of the money standard, but a formal abnegation of any such projects was inserted in the solemn oath taken annually by the numerous diakasts, who formed the popular judicial body, called hêliæa, or the hêliastic jurors,—the same oath which pledged them to uphold the democratical constitution, also bound them to repudiate all proposals either for an abrogation of debts or for a redivision of the lands.[184] There can be little doubt that under the Solonian law, which enabled the creditor to seize the property of his debtor, but gave him no power over the person, the system of money-lending assumed a more beneficial character: the old noxious contracts, mere snares for the liberty of a poor freeman and his children, disappeared, and loans of money took their place, founded on the property and prospective earnings of the debtor, which were in the main useful to both parties, and therefore maintained their place in the moral sentiment of the public. And though Solon had found himself compelled to rescind all the mortgages on land subsisting in his time, we see money freely lent upon this same security, throughout the historical times of Athens, and the evidentiary mortgage pillars remaining ever after undisturbed. [184] Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. p. 746. οὐδὲ τῶν χρεῶν τῶν ἰδίων ἀποκοπὰς, οὐδὲ γῆς ἀναδασμὸν τῆς Ἀθηναίων, οὐδ᾽ οἰκιῶν (ψηφιοῦμαι): compare Dio Chrysostom, Orat. xxxi, p. 332, who also dwells upon the anxiety of various Grecian cities to fix a curse upon all propositions for χρεῶν ἀποκοπὴ and γῆς ἀναδασμός. What is not less remarkable is, that Dio seems not to be aware of any one well-authenticated case in Grecian history, in which a redivision of lands had ever actually taken place—ὃ μηδ᾽ ὅλως ἴσμεν εἴ ποτε συνέβη. (_l. c._)